Location based services are rapidly expanding. Outdoor location technologies are mainly based on GPS (Global Positioning System) technologies. GPS cannot perform properly indoors and is therefore inadequate. As a result, indoor location systems are starting to appear on the market.
The need for a system arises from various market segments and applications. One example in the market is the GPS based systems that use integrated positioning and navigation systems based on GPS receivers as the primary positioning technology. However, the fact that uninterrupted satellite reception is not possible in many locations is a major limitation of many GPS based systems. In particular, indoor areas such as shopping malls and departments stores feature environments where GPS signals suffer from losses due to walls, roofs, possible multiple floors, and other obstructions which significantly degrade the signal and cause the GPS signal to be accurate to within approximately 30-50 meters. This level of accuracy is too imprecise for certain applications where sub-meter precision in positioning is required, such as navigating a user to a particular shop or kiosk within a mall.
Many currently available indoor positioning systems attempt to solve this problem by means of wireless beacons that emit a BlueTooth signal. Positioning is then typically determined by calculating the distance from each beacon and using triangulation to estimate a location. However, beacons can be time consuming and costly to deploy and maintain, and their performance can degrade as their batteries wear out.
Therefore, there exists a need for a cost effective and scalable solution that does not rely on hardware installation and that maintains high performance and precision indoors.
To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common to the figures. It is contemplated that elements disclosed in one embodiment may be beneficially utilized on other embodiments without specific recitation. The drawings referred to here should not be understood as being drawn to scale unless specifically noted. Also, the drawings are often simplified and details or components omitted for clarity of presentation and explanation. The drawings and discussion serve to explain principles discussed below, where like designations denote like elements.